Special Physics Seminar

Part of the 40th Anniversary Reunion of the 1967 Honours Physics Class

My Adventures in Photonic Crystals

Eli Yablonovitch

Opto-Electronics Group
Electrical Engineering Department
UCLA

The natural world is filled with crystals, periodic structures that interact with electron waves. Drawing on this analogy, photonic crystals are artificial periodic structures that are intended for electromagnetic waves, instead. This has now unleashed the collective scientific imagination of many creative scientists, engendering a profusion of synthetic electromagnetic crystal structures. In correspondence to semiconductor crystals, these usually have an electromagnetic bandgap, a band of frequencies in which electromagnetic waves are forbidden. They have been conceived for various applications including high capacity optical fibers, color pigments, and especially nano-photonic integrated circuits that will become part of standard microchips.